Oneupmanship

Stephen Potter's -manship Books

-manship books

Screen adaptations

Gamesmanship

Published in 1947, Gamesmanship was the first of Stephen
Potter's -manship books. With it, Potter brought the word "gamesmanship"
into the language in its present day meaning - the art of winning games
without actually cheating.

Gamesmanship exposes the true motives and techniques of apparently
sporting games players. It contains hints for gaining psychological
advantage over opponents, before, during and after a game, no matter who
actually wins.

Gamesmanship reveals a number of specific "ploys" (i.e.
gambits) for a variety of sports, including golf, snooker, squash,
tennis, bridge, poker, chess, darts and cricket.

School for Scoundrels

An Ealing comedy style movie, School for Scoundrels, was released in 1960
based on the -manship books. It starred Terry Thomas as the cad who
frustrates Ian Carmichael (the hero) before he resorts to being taught
one-upmanship by Stephen Potter, played by Alastair Sim.

The movie is
available on DVD and
on blu-ray in a digitally remastered form with, amongst other things, a video interview from Stephen's grandson, Chris Potter, who explains the background to the -manship books and to the movie.

Lifemanship

Stephen Potter went on expand the concept of Gamesmanship into the
wider social realm with his next book, Lifemanship, published in
1950.

Lifemanship dealt with how to get ahead in both business and social
life (and even extended to successful wooing of women!).

School for Scoundrels (2007 remake)

The School for Scoundrels movie was given the Hollywood treatment in 2007
with Billy Bob Thornton playing the teacher and Jon Heder the student in the school of life.

One-upmanship (TV series)

A short TV series, One-upmanship, was produced by the BBC
in the late 1970s, starring Richard Briers and Peter Jones.

This isn't currently available but you can find out more about it on the BBC website.

Later sequels

Stephen Potter wrote a number of subsequent volumes, exploring
these themes further, including Supermanship (published in 1958)
and Golfmanship.

Through Gamesmanship and its sequels, Stephen Potter introduced into the English
language the facetious use of the -manship suffix. This spawned a number
of other -manship words, such as brinkmanship (first coined by Adlai
Stevenson at the height of the Cold War).